Just a reminder: I own nothing but the storyline. And the plot that is beginning to confuse me slightly. Sorry for any confusion. I got confused when uploading and had to change all the chapter numbers and all that. I also removed Hanna's POV and the intro so I could put up the last chapter. Or something.

Chapter 12

APOV

I knew that whatever my mentor had to say was going to be interesting. Possibly, something that was outside of the range of what I'd done so far.

'I think we need to kill Ian, before he becomes more of a risk,' she stated decisively.

Kill him. Wow. That was one hell of a lot more than I'd ever had to do so far as A.

So far, all I'd done was play a couple of little pranks, send a few texts, and spy on a few people. But I'd never killed anyone.

Of course, it had crossed my mind that it might be a possibility, but I hadn't thought it would be yet.

The odd thing was I was looking forward to it. Somehow, I thought it would be something good for A to do.

My mentor would help, too-that would be good.

Instinctively-after so long of being A, it came naturally-I reached for and opened the folder to where there was a slim sheaf of paper with the front marked 'Ian Thomas'.

We huddled over the papers, scanning through for something useful.

Assistant coach of the girls' field hockey team. Pervert.

It would work. He drove to and from the field hockey field, and parked his car some distance away. It would't be hard to puncture a few tyres, then offer him a lift-leading him in the opposite direction, before silencing him.

Then, one of us would run to the car, which we would have parked an inconspicuous distance away, and deal with the body.

It was almost exciting. My mentor seemed to think so too-her eyes glowed as she read my idle doodles-made to look just like the plan I was formulating.

Tomorrow, after school, would be the best time we could deal with it.

She grabbed the pen and began to draw slowly, a random bunch of lines that didn't make sense. When she lifted her hand off the paper, I understood the lines-they created an old-fashioned wishing well, with some small flames sparking around the edges of the well. All we needed was for the well to be completely dry-a tarpaulin might help with that in case of rainfall.

It was a plan that would work well, as long as we stayed hidden. That shouldn't be hard: there was a forest not far away, and both of us were fit enough to run from one to the other. Binoculars would be necessary: we were only human after all, and therefore only had human eyesight.

All that we needed now was strategy. We couldn't very well pull Ian away from the end of hockey practise; kill him in broad daylight, then go dragging the body to dispose of it. We might as well put up fliers with our pictures and the headline 'We killed Ian Thomas'. There was sure to be a witness if we tried anything during the day.

Suddenly the thought occurred to me. We could take a bottle of water to him, and spike the water that he would be drinking. After practise, he'd no doubt be thirsty. He probably wouldn't question either of us for playing water-girl. It shouldn't be hard to find a drug that would knock someone unconscious for several hours. Long enough that we could drag him to the place at 2 a.m., kill him and then deal with the body. It would be especially helpful if he were still unconscious when we moved to kill him, as it meant we wouldn't have to worry about him trying to struggle or scream out.

Now, I just had to find the drugs that would help us.

Mentor POV

I could tell A was scheming for the best ways to kill someone. She had the look on her face that said she was strategizing. As she planned, she doodled slowly on the paper in front of her.

I watched the images forming under her hand. Some made sense, others didn't. One was a water bottle. Was she planning to poison his water? Replace it with some mixture of water and turpentine, combined with something that would take away the taste?

Finally, finally, she laid down the pencil and folded the paper before burning it. My curiosity was starting to increase quickly, desperate to know what she had in mind.

'I'm thinking we visit him after hockey practise, and offer him a bottle of water-drugged, of course. He drinks it, and is knocked unconscious. He'll then be unconscious long enough for us to get him into the car and hide him until the magic hour, 2a.m., when we can take him-still unconscious-to the wishing well and put him to sleep forever'. A had definitely thought this through. Even I was impressed.

I was also pleased that she didn't just plan to have him drink some poison. He deserved a more dignified death. Granted, there wasn't much dignified about being killed by someone much smaller than yourself, but at least his death would remain a mystery.

After all, Rosewood deserved to try solving one old mystery and one new one.

With that, I began to make plans to be sure that in no way could anyone suspect us of his death.

APOV

My mentor was making plans, I could tell. As she did, I powered up my computer and ran my routine online check. This was becoming more frequent: we had always had to be sure that no-one suspected or knew of A, other than four girls in particular. And if A was in the news somewhere, we had to deal with it appropriately. As always, there was nothing.

Deal with the people who had placed the article, any sources who had been quoted in the article, and then try to release something countering it. Since neither of us were newspaper reporters, we mainly used anonymous opinion pieces. Even if we didn't get them published, it was still a way to express an opinion. As well as that, we knew most people couldn't resist gossiping. One person who read it might mention it to someone else, and it could spread around the town.

Often, when such a thing happened, it changed ever so slightly. The original changed from person to person as different people added their opinions, or tried to figure something out using logic. It was all just another way to keep people off the track and divert them.

As the afternoon bled into evening, which passed over into night, we planned further. By midnight, we'd shaped the plan into something perfect.

Luckily for us, Mona had not named Ian as a suspect. He was still free and was often seen around. That just made it easier.

SPOV

I woke around 1a.m., feeling oddly unsettled. I had a strange feeling of foreboding, as if something was going to happen soon.

Maybe A was going to do something that would wreck Hanna's reputation, or mine. So far, A had targeted Emily and Aria-because of her, Aria had been homeless until moving in with her dad, and Emily had been sent to Iowa before running away.

I'd done my best to try figuring out what A had told me to, but it hadn't been easy. I'd been worried that A would see what I was doing, and try to punish me for it. That somehow, what I was doing wasn't enough.

So I'd tried to compensate for it by writing it all out. Some pages just had a few words; others had whole paragraphs.

Probably I was overcompensating, but it settled me slightly to do some more than I'd been told to.

It struck me as strange, that I was sitting up even later bent over my desk, trying to figure out something with limited information. It was also strange that I was hoping to please someone I didn't know-not knowing who A was strange.

I attempted to satisfy myself with the notion that A was just planning something. A was probably bored just ordering myself and the others around, and wanted to do something major.

Whatever it was, I hoped it wouldn't affect me. There was the time the old A had tried to kill me, and I'd wound up killing her in self-defence. Although I hadn't been charged with her death, I still felt bad about it at times. I'd never intended to kill her-yet, she was dead.

I wanted to talk to Ian after hockey practise. Mainly, I wanted to find out what had happened between him and Alison when we were in seventh grade.

Somehow, I figured that he might know something I didn't. Maybe Ali had told him something that she wouldn't have told us-maybe there was something that she desperately needed to tell someone, but at the same time wanted to keep as secret as possible.

I still thought that she kept our secrets as a way to have power, to be able to lord them over us. If she had told any of us her secret, whatever it may have been, she lost that delicate balance of power. She knew a secret of ours, but then one of us also knew one of hers, and we could hold it over her if we wanted to. Not that any of us would have dared-well, I might have. I wasn't sure about the others.

When I did manage to get to sleep, I dreamed of Ali. She was holding what appeared to be a remote control, with many buttons.

Mentor POV

That night, I couldn't sleep. During the day, I couldn't focus on anything. My thoughts were on one topic only.

I channelled my excess energy into refining the plan, then rewriting it in times. By the time I had finished refining everything, I had it all written out to the minute.

I was tempted to take the plan to A and suggest we follow it with military precision. I had to resist though, I didn't want to anger her, and risk her willingness to do this.

Finally, the school day ended. I headed for home, while A took a detour: ostensibly jogging along the route that would take her directly past the hockey fields. It was necessary to check that Ian was there, or the plan wouldn't work.

A texted me once on her way home, confirming that Ian was indeed there.

I got my supplies together carefully and quickly, and then prepared a bottle of water with the necessary drugs that would knock Ian out. I'd had to do some research, which made me nervous: I was slightly concerned that someone might find out and think it unusual.

Once the water was ready, I slipped it into my bag with other supplies: a knife, a crowbar, some methylated spirits, a pack of matches and two backup knives, wrapped carefully in newspaper.

I texted A to let her know that everything was ready to go: I had all the supplies I needed.

Her reply came back almost immediately: she too, was ready and waiting, hiding in the woods. More accurately, she had climbed into the thickest part of a tree and was there with binoculars.

She would be waiting for me and alert me to which tree she was in with a signal: she would drop a small branch to the ground.

I grabbed my heavy black hoodie and slipped it on, before retying my shoes and swapping my skirt for jeans, then slipped a pair of sunglasses into my pocket. Once I was anywhere near the field, I would need them to obscure as much of my face as possible.

Finally, I was out the door. I made sure to walk at a leisurely pace, as though I had all the time in the world. As I began to approach the field, I bent down as if to tie my shoelace, then slipped on my sunglasses. I scanned the trees and observed a small branch dropping to the ground.

With the branch, I saw the flutter of a red ribbon.

I skirted around behind the field, where as few people as possible would see me, and sped into the forest.

Above me, I heard a soft cough and saw another scrap of red ribbon drift to the ground. Good, it was now clear that A was there. I picked up the ribbon and quickly climbed the tree, sitting next to her.

'Ian has been there the whole time', she murmured, 'and Spencer seems quite on edge. Luckily Melissa is not here today, watching her boyfriend coach.' She drew the last words out in a slightly higher-pitched voice, and I laughed silently. A never had liked Melissa much. Melissa was too much of a mommy's girl.

I handed over the backpack. A rifled through and dug out a pair of heavy-duty gloves and the knife, securing it carefully inside her boot. She passed me the binoculars and slipped slowly down the tree, cautious not to dislodge the knife and have it end up in her foot.

I suspected that even if she had wound up with the knife in her foot, she would have just pulled it out and wiped off the blood.

I watched as she wandered lazily to the car park, looking for all the world as if she had just been for a long hike through the woods and was headed to the parking lot to be picked up.

APOV

Once I reached the car park, I headed straight for Ian's car. There was absolutely no one around, and I knelt down, carefully sliding the knife into three of the four tyres. One perfect, clean puncture wound in each, and my work was done. I watched as the air drained out of each tyre with a soft hiss, and returned to the woods.

I darted up the tree, rejoining my mentor, and she caught me up on what had happened since I'd been gone. Not a lot, as it happened.

We passed the binoculars between us until the practise ended, and watched as Ian started to leave the field. My mentor jumped from the tree; I joined her and we walked a few yards behind Ian, forced to walk very slowly to stay behind him at his ambling pace.

It felt like we'd been walking forever when we finally reached the car park. I ran to the car, and waited on the passenger side as my mentor pretended to search for her keys.

Just then, we heard cursing.

My mentor turned, fake concerned, to find Ian Thomas complaining about his slashed tyres.

'Can we give you a ride somewhere?' I offered him, keeping my voice even and light.

He looked immensely grateful, and came over to the car; I went around to the backseat, to give the illusion of offering the passenger seat out of politeness.

Ha.

We all got in, and I dug around for the bottle of water that was still completely full. This part had better work.

My mentor glanced back at me, pretending she wanted to know if I was ready to get going. I held the bottle of water up and pointed to Ian, and she lifted both eyebrows ever so slightly.

Better to wait until he makes a mention of his thirst, than offer out of the blue. It seemed odd to offer right out.

She started the car and began telling Ian about the hike we took earlier today. Technically, it could have been true. We had been the other day in preparation for today, memorizing interesting things and taking photos.

Ian seemed genuinely interested and mentioned that he'd just spent the afternoon coaching field hockey, as he did nowadays.

Eventually, he complained of being thirsty and gave me the perfect cue.

'We still have some water packed for our hike' I offered. 'We deliberately take too much because we never know how long we'll be or how far we're going. It's always better to have too much than not enough, right?'

Ian accepted the water gratefully and drained half the bottle at once. According to the research, it wouldn't take long to kick in. The dose we had fixed was perfect for someone of his height and weight-based on our estimates anyway-and soon enough, he started yawning.

My mentor suggested it was just a combination of warmth: it was still warm, and exercising, which was tiring.

Soon after, he was asleep. The drugs would wear off in about twelve hours: we had roughly eight hours, and a crowbar if it was necessary.

We pulled over to the secluded side of the road and between us, transferred the unconscious Ian to the boot. I took the passenger seat on getting back in and left.

Mentor POV

Once at home I dug a hole under the flower bushes and buried the first knife in there. It was so thoroughly buried that it would probably never be excavated, and if it ever was, it would be well rusted and thick with dirt by then.

I went through the routine of dinner and pretending to do my homework with A. Towards ten p.m.; we both quit the homework façade and settled in to wait until two a.m.

The time moved sluggishly as we waited, talking quietly, pretending to read, browsing online.

Finally, the clock ticked over to 2:00A.M. and we both slipped out the door.

It wasn't hard to get the car out of the street quietly, before driving to the place.

Once there, we dragged the still unconscious Ian to the wishing well and took out a knife. I carefully made a few incisions, knowing from research what areas would bleed the most, before stepping back.

The blood was streaming now, and A stepped in to cut off his air supply by wrapping a scarf tightly around his neck. She pulled on the ends for long enough that eventually, she seemed to be struggling to keep her hold. I signalled to her that she should let go now, and she did.

The blood flow was slowing now, and Ian's face was rapidly turning blue.

I wore rubber gloves, so carefully placed my fingers against his throat to check his heartbeat. It was almost non-existent.

At times like this, I wished there was a vampire around.

We watched each other, careful not to make a sound. She reached into the backpack and lifted out the crowbar, then smacked it against the back of his head twice. Once more and his already slow heartbeat began to fade away even more under my fingers.

At last, his heartbeat stopped altogether. I held my fingers in place a little longer, trading off with A for another forty minutes.

We were satisfied that he would never wake up, and began the cleanup. It was the magic hour-three A.M., and most people would be in the deepest stage of REM sleep. They were too close to being corpses. As far as every day life went, that was the closest to dead people would get, until the actual death.

I lifted the body over the edge of the well, and A shone a torch on it. I poured on the methylated spirits, emptying the bottle. A dropped a lit match, then another, and another. She dropped six more matches, and the body blazed up. The fire raged, hungrily consuming the body, fueled by the alcohol in the methylated spirits.

For the second time, I wished there was a vampire around.

We watched as the fire continued its destruction, until finally it burnt out. The body was now unrecognizable, and the crowbar had been a great help-it would make dental records harder to use when the body was found. If it ever was found.

I tossed some leaves that had fallen into the well, until there was a layer of them covering the body. Chances were someone might be out here smoking sometime soon. The leaves would dry up and that someone might be inclined to toss the cigarette over into the well.

It could be arranged. It would only be a small fire, but it would help. Except, of course, it would have to be re-covered over again.

Even so, it would be easy to conceal.

By now we'd finished cleaning up, careful not to leave any blood around the area, and were ready to go. As an afterthought, I dropped the empty bottle in, with another lit match following it. More flames flared up instantly and they licked at the body. We gathered more leaves to cover over the area while the fire burnt; piling them in once the fire had died out.

Both of us were eventually content with our work. After checking over the area one last time, we took off.

One threat was dealt with. Now we had to assess the next possible threat.

APOV

As we left, I thought about everything. I wondered how long it would take a body to be so completely burnt that it was beyond recognition.

I was happy that we'd managed to get rid of one of our major threats-one of a few people who could have possibly outed us.

I hoped we hadn't left any evidence at all, and made a plan to go back at the first opportunity to check.

I tried to figure out how long it would be, before it hit the news. And, by extension, how long it would take before the press would be interested.

I thought about how it had made my mentor relax some, to have a threat eliminated.

My mentor drove, apparently sensing that I wanted to think about everything. Just as we reached home, the full force of what we'd done hit me, and I nearly burst into laughter. I was giddy with relief and adrenaline coursed through my body. She looked at me with concern, and evaluated me thoughtfully. Parking the car, she turned to me, her eyes serious.

'I think we should stay out of this. We make no mention of it and just let it unfold. That way, we can pretend to be as startled as anyone else in Rosewood is when the news breaks. However it happens, it will probably be breaking news, and it probably will be within the next couple of weeks. We need to move on from it and return to you being A. Once the news breaks, you can ask them why he might have been killed. For now, A makes no mention of it.'

Everything she said made sense, and I quickly agreed. We slipped back inside and hurried to get to sleep.

As I got ready for bed, I thought it all over. I had to wonder, who was next on the list? Was there going to be anyone else?

It frustrated me that I would have to get up in barely three hours. While I was completely devoted to being A and working to appease my mentor, there were downsides.

Lack of sleep was the obvious one, and by far the biggest. By now though, I'd adapted to functioning on two or three hours of sleep in a night, and then getting up at six A.M. Most days, I managed to get up and get something with caffeine on the way to school.

Still, I missed sleeping a whole night, of eight or nine hours. My mentor only got slightly more sleep than I did. I had to do so much sneaking out and following people around, trying to guess at their next move, that I often had to delay homework too.

I promised myself that before we had to take care of our next threat, I would start banking sleep. Otherwise, I might be at risk of becoming a threat, if I had to keep running on so little sleep. I was sure my mentor would agree. It would be particularly helpful if she and I could trade off nights when we had to watch someone. That way, one of us could sleep while the other got vital information.

That then meant that both of us would get a decent amount of rest and not be forever running on caffeine and adrenaline. It wasn't the healthiest thing in the world.

As I started to drift towards sleep, I wondered again how long it would take before the news broke.

A/N: I'm back at university now, which means better internet access and more likelihood of my updating more.

I'd still really like to get reviews. I admit I haven't updated too frequently in the past months, but now I'm only working from what I have in mind, which is a part of why it's taken me a while to update. No reviews=less inspiration=it's harder for me to write something. With this chapter, I got inspired to write about 12 pages at once, but that doesn't always happen.

So, please review. Tell me if you like it, or don't, or… well, anything, really. I also welcome ideas.

I'm not going to subscribe to the holding a chapter hostage until X number of reviews (did I already say that? Well, if I did, I'll say it again ) but reviews help me write and update faster-whether its suggesting something I can include in the story/chapter, or encouragement.

J